[alexti]

Rainbow mage is a good idea, but don't use druids as a chassis. Ghost king is much better choice. You don't want astral on him and you don't need earth or blod either - that will save you some points. Your national mages can search for earth/astral and they can forge some good armour for GK almost immediately. After that rainbow GK can capture indy province, search it, capture another, search it etc. If you research to Blade wind quickly you can throw a lot of mages to cast it, just forge something for them (probably shield in the beginning to minimize casualitites). With your mages you should be able to establish good astral income, so a bit later you can summon golems to act as thugs.